CRIM 101 Lecture Notes - Actus Reus, Mens Rea, Socalled
4 Dec 2012
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Document Summary
Criminology a social science studying crim and related phenomenon, such as law making, criminal behavior, victimization, and punishment. Discipline of crim is a recent development. Most ideas and concepts we now have about crime and criminals emerged over last 2 or. There is little relationship between crime news and actual amount of crime. Media focus primarily on violent crimes, even though such crimes form only small part of all criminal activity. Appears as though police solve more crimes and arrest more criminals than they do in reality. Deal with moral questions of good vs. evil. Criminals appear in stories as insane, or dangerous. Stories happen in short time span- between newscasts or newspaper editions. Felson"s 10 fallacies about crime: dramatic fallacy to keep ratings high, media seek strange/violent incidents to report/create dramas around. Murder makes up less than 1% of all crime, yet from watching tv or reading the papers, it seems like a commonplace event.
